The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7477 p541
10 November 2007

Society summary

Council agrees to reduce fees for 2008 originally proposed in July

The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has reduced the 2008 retention fee payable by practising pharmacists from the £425 it proposed in July (PJ, 4 August, p129) to £395. Other fees have also been reduced.

The Council made its decision at the November Council meeting. The new fee structure (see Table), was recommended to the Council by the Society’s Resource Management Committee following a consultation among members on the proposed fees.

Six recommendations were put to the Council. The first was to set the retention fee for practising pharmacists at £395, an increase of 39.6 per cent, and to make pro rata adjustments to all other fees with the following exceptions:

•  Non-practising pharmacists’ fees to be set at £67, an increase of 4.7 per cent
•  Non-practising technicians’ fees to be set at £67 in line with pharmacists’ fees
•  Overseas members’ fees to be set at £118, an increase of inflation only from £112
•  New members’ and overseas initial fees to be set at £191, an increase of 39.9 per cent
•  Preregistration and registration examination fees to be increase by 4.95 per cent to £160 and £189, respectively

Andrew Gush, the Society’s Treasurer, told the Council that since the consultation a number of major changes had occurred, which had financial impact. Further work had been done to identify potential budget savings and this had been assisted by a reassessment of the timing of the implementation of the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order, which would enable some costs to be delayed.

He added that there had been successful preliminary discussions with the trustees of the pension fund over the pension deficit, which was expected to result in a reduction in the deficit. In addition, the Society was about to consult with its staff on reducing future benefits from the pension scheme and thus costs.

Furthermore, he said, the Society had been able to agree with the Charity Commission changes to the trust deed of the Pharmaceutical Trust for Educational and Charitable Objects that would allow the trust to support the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust. This was work that would otherwise have been directly supported by the Society and thus has helped to ameliorate the additional tax charges arising from recent changes to Gift Aid legislation.

And the Government had provided £3m to the Professional Regulation and Leadership Oversight Group which, in turn, had reduced the future risk factors affecting the Society.

The Treasurer added that staged payments of fees should be pursued as a matter of priority. “Staged payments is a complicated process and I am determined that the rate-determining step in delivering this to our members will not be the Society. We will do everything possible to put this in place at the earliest possible time,” he told the Council.

John Jolley expressed his disappointment at the failure to recognise the impact that these increases would have on those specialised sector groups within the Society, namely the academic and industrial pharmacist sectors, where the increases are likely to have serious implications in terms of the numbers of members retained within those groups.

He told the Treasurer that he would have liked to have seen special measures taken to retain members across the whole breadth of the profession. “I see there is a real danger that we will become a professional association which has one single area of practice, namely, community pharmacy,” he said.

Jonathan Buisson said that the Council had to be realistic about how much it could do to please all of the people all of the time. The new fee structure would not do that but it had been well thought through.

Dorothy Drury said she wanted to see a sustainable professional body in the future but she worried that the fee increases might push part-time workers and those in some non-clinical sectors to come off the Register. “When it is not mandatory to join a professional body, we will be in a competitive market so we need to listen to our current members,” she said.

Graham Phillips reminded the Council that members would want to see some improvements, some changes and the right culture developing. “That cannot start too soon,” he said. He added that he believed the Government had a moral imperative to support the Society and the profession. It was demanding a high level of practice and a level of input which was certainly pharmacists’ professional ambition. “I would like to see us negotiating much harder with the Government to achieve those aims.”

Brian Curwain said that the new fee structure represented a sensible compromise in an extremely difficult situation.